Hannah Cain To Play For Wales Against Former Teammates At Women’s Euro

Hannah Cain will be named today in the first-ever Welsh women’s squad to go to a major tournament where she will face some of the England side she played alongside at youth level.

The 26-year-old Leicester City striker has recovered from two ruptures to her anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL) in the past four years to lead the line for her country, scoring the first goal in the decisive play-off victory away to the Republic of Ireland which qualified Wales for the UEFA Women’s Euro. There, next month, her team has been drawn against three of the top eleven nations in the world – the Netherlands, France and England.

Cain was born in Doncaster, England and represented the Lionesses at u17 and u19 level. However, she was also eligible to turn out for Wales through her maternal grandfather and played for them as an u16. She was unaware that having played for England at a UEFA age-group tournament, she would have to continue to do so until senior level. She eventually made a final choice to represent the Welsh dragon over the Three Lions in 2021, Cain told me Wales was always in her heart.

“Playing for Wales was a really different feeling than playing with England,” she said, “England was very structured, very organised. When I was going to Wales youth camps, I had the buzz about me, I had the fun factor. I was playing with my closest friends and I had a real excitement. I probably played my best football then.”

Only injury prevented Cain from going to the u18 FIFA Women’s World Cup with England in 2018. She would have been in a squad which included Alessia Russo, Chloe Kelly, Esme Morgan, Georgia Stanway, Lauren Hemp and Niamh Charles, all in the current senior England squad. Cain could face those former international team-mates wearing a Welsh shirt on July 13 in St. Gallen.

Playing at all is an achievement for Cain who has suffered from a series of potentially career-ending injuries. As well as the two dreaded ACL injuries in 2021 and 2023, she also played with broken bones in her foot at Everton, requiring her to have a metal rod inserted into her big toe which she still plays with now. She documented her latest recovery in a revealing YouTube documentary called 330 days, the time that she spent out through injury after her second ACL injury.

Having gone through all that, she told me what it would mean to her to go to the UEFA Women’s Euro with her country. “It’s absolutely unbelievable, I still can’t quite believe it now. I’m still not sure it’s even sunk in yet but I’m sure it will when we actually get there. It’s such a whirlwind of emotions. I’ve had so many ups and downs in football that you basically live on a roller-coaster.”

“The first ACL was tough mentally, I’d just made my Welsh debut and then just four days later – like I say – everything was so high and then it all came crashing down. There’s never a good time to do it, but there’s certainly a worse time to do it. When you’ve just been on such a high like that, it really does destroy you for a long time.”

“I struggled with that really badly after the first one, but the second one, I knew what was coming, I knew as soon as I’d gone down that it was a lot worse than the first time. I struggled with the first one missing out on the World Cup qualifiers, so I had no impact on that and obviously we lost in the last minute of extra time to Switzerland and I was sat at home just after my surgery missing it. All I wanted to do was be there.”

After going so close to qualifying for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, Wales faced another qualification play-off for the UEFA Women’s Euro last winter, this time against the Republic of Ireland. With Cain back in their ranks, Wales won 2-1 in Dublin to qualify for a first senior international tournament. A year and a day after her second ACL rupture, Cain scored the first goal from the penalty spot.

“I remember being stood there on the penalty spot and all I thought, this has to go in. I knew I had been through so much and this was the moment I was waiting for. A couple of girls and the staff came up to me after the game when were in the celebrations and said ‘this is what it was all for’. People always say everything happens for a reason and you never know the reason until it’s right there in front of you. I waited through two ACLs, over three years to get to that point. If that was the reason, then I’ll absolutely take it.”

Although Wales finished bottom of their UEFA Women’s Nations League group earlier this month, they did take two points from the group winners Sweden. Cain scored the equalising goal in the away game in Gothenburg and celebrated with a full-length dive, something she told me could be replicated in Switzerland next month.

“Yeah 100%! If I score at the Euros you better believe I will be doing a celebration just like that. I love scoring, I love creating goals, I love assisting – I just like winning! To score for your country, is just a feeling you’ll never be able to replicate.”

Cain sports a distinctive tattoo of a lion on the back of her thigh but insists it has nothing to do with her previous allegiance to England. “It’s just I really like a Lion,” she tells me. ‘It’s one of my favorite animals. It’s actually got two different faces, you can’t see unless you’re really close up. One side is a little bit abstract and the other side’s like a robotic face of a lion. I’ll have to get a proper picture so people can actually see it. It’s just unfortunate that people think it’s for England.”

During the long recovery from her second ACL injury, Cain contemplated a life away from the game. She enrolled in a Sports Business and Marketing Course with the Sports Business Institute in Barcelona. She will actually miss her own graduation to play at the UEFA Women’s Euro in Switzerland.

For now she can put her qualifications to one side and look forward to potentially playing in a World Cup in her own country when the United Kingdom is set to host the 2035 tournament. Cain will be 36 but takes inspiration from a member of the current Wales squad. “I’ll 100% try and be there for it. We have Jess Fishlock in our team and she’s actually a little but older than that and she’s probably one of the best players in our team.”

Cain is out of contract with Leicester City at the end of this month and will be a free agent, able to move to a new club. She told me she has not made any decisions about her future but insisted that “I’ve got so much more to give, for club and country. I’m just excited that I’ve had my unlucky run now with my injuries and now it’s just going to go forward.”